The Blog of Ramblings, Grumblings,Stumblings, Comics, and Opinions, Both Informed and Uninformed.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Pilot Error...

So I'm minding my own business flipping through the morning news programs determining which of the cable ones is gonna piss me off the most.

And the winner is....CNN

Now usually, it would be Fox and its morning fiends with their vapid stories and Donald Trump worship.

But CNN pissed me off but for the right reason. I was outraged at the content of a story they reported. They reported the story on why the plane that was flying to Buffalo, New York crashed. It turned out it may have had to do with pilot error and that fatigue may have been the cause. What opened my eyes was how much money the co-pilot, Rebecca Shaw, 24 made last year. It turns out she made 16,254 dollars. That's pathetic

Now it was mentioned how much she was paid an hour, $21 an hour but it didn't specify at what point did she get paid. Did she only get paid for air time? Or did she get paid for airport time? I'm thinking she only gets paid for air time which is only a small amount of time to be paid. $21 an hour is an insulting wage for a skilled pilot to be paid. I mean, the training that must be involved, the skills that need to be mastered, and the stress that must be endured has got to be worth much more than that.

Now pilots are expected to provide for their own sleeping quarters when they are not at their home base. The co-pilot, Lynn Morris lived in Seattle with her parents. She couldn't afford to rent a place in the Newark Airport area to crash, so whenever she does rest it would be in the airport crew lounge. It was against the rules to sleep there but because of her low pay and high pressure, she would sneak it in. This is no business running airlines have taken over and priority number one is to make cost cuts. That means breaking unions, using old planes, salary cuts for pilots and substandard service so that shareholders and hedge managers make their profits. How much is enough though?